“You okay?” he asked gruffly.
“Fine,” I panted. “Nightmares,” I said, swinging my feet off the bed.
“About what?”
I shook my head. “I can’t remember.”
For once, it was a bald-faced lie. I remembered all of my nightmares, even when I was flush with the new numbness that came with the injections Lorne gave me.
“You’re lying to me,” he said.
“I’m not.”
“Your heart is pounding.”
“I just woke up from a nightmare and you startled me. I didn’t expect to see you standing there.”
“You’ve been crying out in your sleep for the last twenty-five minutes.”
“Did I wake you?”
He didn’t answer. He sat on the edge of my bed, and I moved away without even realizing I was doing it.
He laughed. “You pissed me off the other day, you know that?”
“I did?”
“You did.”
“I don’t remember.”
I knew he was studying me in the dark. “You don’t,” he said. It wasn’t a question. He sounded thoughtful. A moment later, he reached over and rested his hand on my thigh, which was bare because of the way the sheets had been twisted and tossed aside during my nightmares. I felt nauseous immediately. He squeezed my thigh firmly, and I started to push his hand away.
“Don’t piss me off again, sweetheart. You won’t like what happens if you push me.”
“I need to sleep. I’m tired.”
“You’re tired. But you also need your mind taken off some shit. I can do that. Once upon a time, you wanted this. You practically jumped me, you were so ready for me.”
“I—”
“Don’t. Just shut up, Jolene.” He leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine.
God, I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I was going to puke, and I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. It was like I was drowning, like I was trying to claw to the surface. I pulled away and he swore. The next instant, he was on me, holding me down on the bed and lowering his face to mine again while I struggled against him.
“Stop,” I told him. I felt a cold anger settling into me, and I held onto it.
“I love you. Be still,” he snarled.
I froze. I couldn’t move, and he laughed, then ran his hands over my body. “You’re such a good weapon, Jolene. You’re a perfect fighter, a perfect thief. You hurt so many fuckers on my behalf. Such a good girl. Smart girl.”
I tried to move. Tried to push him away as his hands wandered.
“You could be so much more to me, sweetheart. You already are.”
It came to me. That was what had made him so mad. The last time he’d tried this, I’d gotten sick all over him. I couldn’t even rely on the nausea now. Just cold rage.
He shifted, forcing a thigh between my legs.
I didn’t even realize I was doing it. I lifted one knee and caught him, as hard as I could, right between the legs. He roared in pain, and I took advantage of his distractedness to shove him away and leap off of the bed. He came after me, and I sent a blast of power out at him and he went flying across my room, crashing into the nightstand and sending the lamp and alarm clock flying. He jumped up, and I hit out at him again, flying at him this time and enjoying the sensation of my fist connecting with his face.
“I love you. Stop. Fucking stop. Now,” he roared, and I couldn’t move. I stood as still as a statue. “Fuck!” he roared. He stormed out of the room, and I heard him make his way to Lorne’s room. I wanted to chase him down, stop him from going after the doctor. Lorne wasn’t my favorite person most of the time, but I guess I trusted him. Kind of. He didn’t deserve Connor’s fists or blades just because I’d pissed him off.
“Boss?” I heard Lorne say, and then there was a crash.
“Put that bitch under again. You fucked up somehow. She’s not what she’s supposed to be.”
I swallowed.
“Boss, I can’t—”
“Do not fucking argue with me Lorne. You can.”
“If I do that, she’s not going to be of any use to you,” Lorne said, his voice high, his distress obvious both from the tone of his voice and the way his pulse was hammering.
“You’re lying to me,” Connor shouted. “You think I don’t know you’re lying? I can hear your fucking heartbeat. Do I have to remind you what happens if you piss me off?”
“My heart’s pounding because I’m trying to tell you we can’t do it and you’re not listening to me. We do it again, we put her under again, and we end up with a goddamn vegetable instead of a weapon.” Lorne was talking fast, as if he was trying to get it all in before Connor could argue.
I felt the effects of Connor’s control phrase wearing off. I shifted from foot to foot and considered whether I was going to rush in and protect Lorne or not. At the moment, all I wanted to do was hear what they were saying. “We’ve already messed with her mind too much. Twice, we put her through erasure and reprogramming. That messes with the brain, and it’s not the kind of stress the brain can take, okay? You know she’s not right. Her short-term memory is shit as it is. She can’t remember what you said to her ten minutes ago. She drifts. Okay? We put her through that again, and we break her.”
“You’re lying. Your pulse—”
“Is hammering because if you go through with this, you’re still going to blame me despite what I’m trying to tell you, and I have everything to lose. You wanted a weapon, you have one. Some things, I can’t control. Whatever it is in her that won’t… allow her to do whatever it is you’re trying to make her do, I couldn’t get rid of it after two rounds of reprogramming, boss. I’m sorry. But if we do it again, just so you can have whatever relationship or whatever it is you want with her, we lose the weapon because she’ll be useless. And your work isn’t done. Your revenge against StrikeForce, against Portia, against Caine… you’re not done yet, and we both know she’s the gun you’ll put to their heads. Right?”
I was impressed. Lorne hadn’t struck me as such a salesman. But he was selling the shit out of this. There were several moments of silence.
“Okay. Okay, you’re right,” Connor said, and I heard Lorne release a relieved breath. “I wanted it all, but you’re right. Big picture.” He sounded pissed.
“I’m sorry, boss,” Lorne said. He didn’t sound all that sorry to me, and it made me like him a little more.
“It’s fine. It’s just become clear that I need to start moving on the big picture. I wanted— well, fuck what I wanted. I’ll win, either way.”
“Right,” Lorne said quietly.
“You did good, Lorne. Thanks.”
“Sure.”
A few seconds later, I heard Connor moving around in his suite upstairs. He must have teleported there.
I sat, thinking. What did Lorne have to lose? What did Connor have over him?
I felt like I already knew this shit somehow, and I wanted to scream. There was so much that was just out of reach. Was this what Lorne had been talking about, about how my brain was fucked up now because of the reprogramming and…
Erasure.
He’d freaking said “erasure.” Connor had sold it to me as they fixed me, undid whatever programming StrikeForce had used on me.
What if there hadn’t been any?
Why did I believe a single thing Connor said? I touched my right arm without thinking, gently running my fingers over the place where Lorne gave my injections.
They calmed me down. Made me stop feeling shit. Made everything make sense, at least in that I didn’t think about anything at all, and didn’t care about the things I did manage to think about.
I glanced at the clock. I was about halfway between doses now. I was having more time now where I felt things, thought things. I missed the numbness.
But clarity was a gift. The numbness was the enemy.
He was a liar. He was—
“Lorne, give her another fucking injection. She’s all hyped u
p down there,” I heard Connor bellow from up in his suite.
I wanted to curse. Swear. Beat the shit out of Lorne when he walked through my door with the syringe.
He met my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered as the plunger lowered. I didn’t respond, just stared at him blankly as the numbness settled over me. Lorne left without another word, and I stood there.
Death settled over me. At least, it felt like death. Nothingness. Emptiness. Coldness. It was good.
I glanced at my closet, used my powers to throw the doors open. I stared at the gray and black StrikeForce uniform without understanding why. All I knew was that I didn’t want to take my eyes off of it. I swore that, if I did, I’d cease to exist.
Clearly, I was losing my fucking mind.
I didn’t sleep. I stared, and I sat in the numbing death, and about four hours later, I felt the first surges of cold rage hit me, along with the memory of Connor pinning me down.
I sat with it. Absorbed it. Held onto it until Lorne came with my morning injection, and then it was gone again and I couldn’t remember anything.
StrikeForce, StrikeForce, StrikeForce, I found myself thinking, over and over, like a silent mantra, like something I had to remember, the way you repeat address numbers to yourself when you’re looking for a certain house, sure you’ll lose it because you’re distracted.
And then it changed.
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene Fucking Faraday, Jolene Fucking Faraday.
Daystar, Daystar, Daystar.
I kept my eyes on the suit.
Connor walked into my room in the late afternoon. I was sitting in the middle of my bed, and a surge of cold satisfaction hit me when I saw that he had two black eyes.
From me.
“Boss,” I said evenly.
“Jolene,” he said, refusing to look at me. “Suit up. We’re going.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Meet me upstairs in ten minutes,” he said, then walked out of my room. “Wear the StrikeForce uniform,” he said over his shoulder.
“Sir?”
He turned and glared at me. “Did I stutter? Wear the StrikeForce uniform. Time to fuck with their minds the way you’ve fucked with mine. Daystar the hero,” he sneered, and then he stormed away.
I turned my head and looked at the uniform.
You don’t deserve to wear that, that little voice said, and for once, we were in complete agreement about something.
Eight minutes later, I was in Connor’s suite, along with Connor and the rest of his team. Well, other than Eve. I hadn’t seen her in weeks, I realized.
When I walked in, Connor gave a short nod. “I’ll be there with you. I’ll be with Jolene at all times, but I’ll be invisible,” he said. “Your entire goal is to kill them. I know you can. Kill them, make them bleed, make them hurt. Embarrass them. Show the world how weak, how worthless, they are. We’ve taken out everybody else, and we’ve let them sit and watch, waiting, knowing we were working our way up to them. Our time is now!” he finished, and shouts and cheers went up around the room. Chance smirked at me.
“Leave my target to me and Jolene. Other than that, kill whoever you want to,” Connor said. The three Scots grinned, Chance smirked some more, and the other randos who had joined him over the past few weeks laughed and bumped fists.
Connor glanced at me, and the glint in his eyes made me sick. “Let’s go. Our hour of glory, of victory, is at hand. And it’s all thanks to Jolene.”
I heard Chance laugh softly. Connor took my hand.
“Wait! She’s about to have an injection,” Lorne said, running into the room with a syringe in his hand. I practically salivated at the sight, at the promise of relief.
“Not now. Get her when we get back. Can’t have her all fucking confused and forgetful now,” Connor said.
“But—”
“Later, Lorne,” Connor said, and then he grabbed my arm and I felt us zipping toward whatever Connor’s teleporting destination was.
When my feet felt like they were on solid ground again, I realized we were in a large prison facility. Lights were flashing, steel doors were opening, and inmates in yellow and orange jumpsuits were running past us. Some cheered at the sight of Connor in his red and black.
“Where are we?”
“One of the last remaining super powered prisons in America,” Connor said. Then he laughed. “Well. Not anymore,” he said. “The jailbreak began a little while ago, thanks to the Scots and the people they have inside. We’re just here for the after-party.”
I looked at Connor in confusion.
“Showtime, Jolene.”
We walked through a crowd of inmates who were all pushing and shoving, trying to find an escape route. I could see, once we were free of the crowd, why they weren’t finding one. A huge fight was happening at what I guessed was the exit. Inmates clashed with a group of costumed heroes in yellow and blue uniforms.
And then I saw the black and gray in the crowd, and I glanced down at myself.
StrikeForce.
I glanced up at Connor to see him smirking, then he pulled his mask down and shoved me into the fray.
“I love you. Fight. It’s the only thing you’re good at.”
I fought.
It seemed like the heroes in blue, who were closest to us, recognized me right away. They came toward me, not attacking, but with hands out, arms out as if they were calling me to them.
One blast with my power, one perfectly-aimed knife to the throat, and they were gone. I heard screams.
I heard someone calling my name. A deep voice with just a bit of roughness to it. It sent shivers down my spine.
I cut down another blue-uniformed hero, realizing numbly that this was the southeast’s superhero team. Were we in New Orleans? I was fighting heroes, and helping with a jailbreak.
“I love you jolene. Keep killing. Don’t stop until I tell you to,” I heard Connor shout, and then I heard him laugh.
“Daystar,” one of the heroes in blue shouted. “Daystar, let us help y—”
He was dead before he finished the sentence, another victim of the way Connor had taught me to hit, just right, a killing blow that very few could survive.
I moved on.
I could see StrikeForce. They seemed to be trying to fight their way toward me, collaring and subduing the prisoners between them and me. Every once in a while one of them would call my name. I saw the Scots fighting three of the StrikeForce heroes off to the side, their names coming to me as clearly as if I’d just spoken to them that day. Toxxin, Jenson, Steel.
Portia, Monster, Screamer, Beta, and a few others in gray and black fought against the rest of Mayhem and the inmates. Connor still hadn’t joined the fight. I knew he was there, just behind me, still invisible, ready to use my control phrase when it seemed like I was slowing down.
Jenson came toward me. Well, a Jenson. I hesitated a moment before Killjoy said my control phrase again, and then I ran a blade across her throat. Another came running at me, and I did the same to her. I noticed another Jenson, or maybe this was the real one, bent double across the corridor, and she released a keening wail that made my stomach twist.
I mowed down a few more uniformed heroes in my path. A yellow and blue, one wearing dark maroon, one wearing forest green. A mishmash of heroes, all in one place.
The last prison for powered people left. I paused for a moment, realizing where we had to be.
StrikeForce Command.
Someone in gray and black ran toward me. I heard Connor laugh softly.
I got ready to send a blast of power at the StrikeForce person. My hands were up.
And then I saw his eyes, the only features visible under his balaclava.
Warm brown.
I froze.
“Jolene,” he said.
I stared. I’d dreamed those eyes.
“Caine. Fucking kill him so we can get this over with,” Connor hissed in my ear.
I didn’t move.
/> Caine stood just as still, only stopping to punch out at an inmate who came at him.
“Jolene,” he said again.
“Jolene, I told you to kill this fucker,” Connor hissed.
“Not man enough to fight your own battles, Killjoy? Need an actual power to fight them for you, huh?” Caine said, his brown eyes still focused on me.
I couldn’t breathe.
“I love you. Now fucking kill him,” Connor hissed.
I took a step forward. Threw a punch, even though part of me seemed to be screaming that it was wrong, that all of this was wrong and that I needed to stop.
I punched him again, and he ducked it. Again. He was fast, strong.
“Cut the fucker,” Connor said. I pulled the knives out of my belt.
“Well, that’s new,” Caine said, and his voice was iodine in an open wound.
And I couldn’t stop trying to hit him.
Ryan
Christ, it was her. I smelled her the second Mayhem had appeared. Still the same. Still a mouthwatering mix of vanilla and heady florals that made me re-live breathing her in as she moved over me, as she whispered how much she wanted me.
It was like a punch to the gut, watching from afar as she killed first one, then two, then three of the members of the Southern Honor team that had moved in with us as if they were nothing. She was wearing her old StrikeForce uniform, her old mask. I couldn’t see her face.
Just now, I was glad for it.
The first time she punched out at me, she almost connected, shocked as I was that Jolene would hit me like that.
This isn’t Jolene. Not completely, I had to tell myself.
I knew that no matter what she was, no matter what she tried to do, I wouldn’t hurt her. Not a chance in hell.
And fucking Killjoy knew it. I could hear him laughing. Telling her to attack me. Telling her he loved her.
That last part made me want to kill him, more than I’ve ever wanted to kill anyone in my life.
She was on me, punching, then stabbing, slicing at me like a woman possessed, so fucking strong, so fast, I knew I probably didn’t stand a chance. I’ve never cared that she’s stronger than me.
“Jolene, stop,” I said to her, quietly. “Come on.”
Strikeforce (Book 4): Day's End Page 14
